We live where we actually need 4WD in the winter so we own a Grand Cherokee (lifted 2" with 245/75.16 Goodyear Duratechs) & a Patriot Limited with FDII (yeah,I know it's not a real Jeep,we wanted something that got better mileage & it has a very sophisticated 4WD system).It's 1.5 miles down a bad dirt road & the last hill to our house is a biatch.

It's too dry here for us to have the ice-covered roads other states get but we carry chains in the winter,why the fark don't people do that,in areas where they're legal that is.

omahatattoo:JustFish: Got a little subaru outback, and will never go back to two wheel drive.

The problem people have is F=MA. For christ sake, yes, four wheel drive will help, but it doesn't change the physics people.

First thing I do when it snows, no matter the car I have at the time, is go out to an empty parking lot and practice emergency turning / braking. You have to know the vehicle and it's limits, and each one is different. Slapping some safety features like ABS and AWD on a car doesn't change the fact that it's a GIANT HEAVY SUV.

The only mention of a Subaru so far...

Fark, I am disappoint.

My 07 Impreza Outback handles like a dream in the snow. I need to remind myself how reliable it is the next time I think of buying anything else.

Has no one caught this "Anderson suggests drivers limit using four-wheel drive to roads with lots of snow that haven't yet been plowed." ?

Unless this is just a grammatical error, the expert is seemingly encouraging the exact opposite of the article's point...'If you do drive 4 wheel drive, make sure there is a fark ton of snow and the road hasn't been plowed..otherwise stay off the road'

You missed the point. Some types of 4WD (not AWD) do not turn well when there is 100% traction; Jeep comes to mind. Once the 4WD is locked, the inside and outside wheels try to turn at the same rotational speed. If the driver is going in a straight line, this is fine. When the driver tries to go around a turn in 4WD on a dry road, the inside wheels will try to turn faster than the outside wheels, and the differing wheel speeds put stress on the driveline. If there is snow on the road and traction is not 100%, the driver can make turns and there will be less stress on the driveline because the snow allows the tires to turn at the same rate.

1) The 4X4 looks more like a mini-van.2) The 4X4 is spotlessly clean.3) The 4X4 is regularly parked in the suburbs.4) The 4X4 has an automatic lift gate or sliding side door.5) The 4X4 has personalized plates that do not appear to reference hunting.6) There are young children in the 4X4.7) There is no dog in the 4X4, or if there is a dog it is a poodle.8) There is a luggage carrier located somewhere on the 4X4, either atop it or on a small platform hooked to the back.9) When operating the 4X4 in normal conditions, the driver goes around speed bumps in parking lots.10) The person refers to his or her 4X4, which is not a pickup, as a "truck."

I'm not excusing the suburbanites, men and women, who drive their glorified minivans thinking they can just cruise through any condition, on the phone, with reckless abandon. But around here (SLC), it's anyone with a big vehicle. The F-250 drivers and Ram 2500 drivers and old souped up off-roaders that are actually used for offroading all drive like morons when some snow starts to fall. My impression is that these types think they are being cool if they gun it off the line following a redlight, or cruise by traffic at 45 mph ,when everyone else is going 25 mph due to road conditions. It's not just the suburban SUV idiots. It's anyone with a big vehicle who thinks they are "cool."

This. I was actually thinking that PocketNinja is exactly the type that winds up ass over teakettle by the side of an icy road. That is of course, unfair, because I don't know if he is a careful driver or not, but the implied machismo leads me to believe he may not be.

Either you know how to drive in snow, or you make friends with the tow guy.

Says the guy who's never downshifted a manual 4x4

/ice racer//grew up in Jeeps and Scouts in the Colorado mountains///never gone off a road in a 4x4 unplanned////also got passed a lot during snowstorms, but always got where I was going

Had a 94 Wrangler (Manual Trans) and live in Western NY. Downshifted in the winter plenty of times. Wet ice is still wet ice.

Well then you know that it's possible to slow more rapidly in a 4x4 than in a car that's just using brakes. People act like 4x4s are only good at going, but they slow just as well as they go, as long as they're not being driven by morans (many of them are though).

I never had any jeeps as new as a Wrangler. '42 Willy's CJ-2A, '69 CJ-5, '84 CJ-7, then a '97 4Runner.

Yep, Idiots / people who don't know how to drive. 2 snowstorms in the past week. I have to take a country road on my way home. Most of the cars in the ditches where SUVs. Yet I have no problem with my 4 speed manual cobalt and bald tires. (well except for the #@$!@# driver side door that has now decided to not open)

Conversely, some folks think just because you drive a 4x4, you should be doing 70 mph in slush. During our last recent snow storm, I had two sports cars rocket out from behind me, and do the obviously-impatient-cutting-it-short pass because having just hydroplaned in the snow run off from the shoulder, I decided it was prudent to slow down to 50 around the curve until a center (and cleaner) lane became available.

Mikey1969:In fact, an SUV faces the same risks as any car when turning or braking. In addition, engaging all four wheels doesn't help on wet or slushy roads, and it uses up more gas.

Yeah, um what the FARK does this have to do with SUVs getting in accidents? Topic. Stay on it...

"But when it gets very slippery, you begin to have problems with traction."

Not if you know what you're doing. Which means slowing down, increasing stopping times, AND NOT CUTTING PEOPLE THE FARK OFF.... Seriously, the last storm we had, I was driving on sheets of ice, doing just fine, and I had 2 different cars just pull out in front of me, close enough that would have been a problem on a dry road, and turned out to be about 2 inches shy of an accident on the icy roads.

Farking assholes.

Here we go: 4WD DOES increase traction. It increases it even on "very slippery" roads. Your 4WD can even help when turning, despite what this numbnuts says, since you have power to the turning wheels, as well as traction helping to push you through the turn. It won't help with braking, but it can help when using your engine/transmission to slow you down. You have all kinds of benefits that this moron can't figure out, but he DID get one thing right: overconfidence. That's the biggest culprit. People who think their 4WD makes that sheet of ice called a road suddenly equal the same road if it were empty and dry.

The weirdest thing about that last storm? I kept having people doing scary, dumb shiat and driving like morons. My buddy who drives on the other side of town had damp roads, but no snow and ice(Salt Lake is weird when it comes to weather), and THOSe people were driving like it was a farking blizzard. So yeah, snowy/icy part of town? Farking NASCAR. Dry, clear side of town? The Great Ice Storm of 2013 or something.

When I get the Jeep I want with the nice big tube bumpers, I'm just not going to be able to stop "in time" one of these mornings and hit one of these cock-knockers who pulls out in front of me. ...

I recommend an Expedition One steel plate front bumper. 125lbs of fark YOU when someone pulls out in front. Add in a winch for more carnage.

Speaking as a former used-car salesman, in the 6 years I sold cars, we probably had less than twenty customers who actually needed a 4WD/AWD. All of them either had professions that required them to go off-highway to job sites or lived in areas that weren't frequently serviced by the plows (Western New York).

All the rest went to idiots that either wanted one of those bloated f**kers to basically look good when they showed up at the bar, or because all the rappers drove 'em in their videos. A few stated they preferred the type because the roads in downtown Buffalo are totally hammered from the weather and the substandard work done on them, which I would give them credit for, but most just wanted them because "they be big!"

From the first snowfall of the season to the last, we'd get calls from those idiots claiming they're vehicles were faulty because they lost it on the Thruway, or they pasted them driving too fast on bad days. It was always the vehicle's (and by extension our) fault they rear-ended someone or they planted it in the median.

I also blame the manufacturers and their ads. They show the cars (and they are really cars, for the most part), blasting through snow, driving at high speeds on icy roads, crap like that. Very few people are qualified to actually take something like this off-road, and honestly, SUVs are really minimal for actual off-roading. They're built very light in order to get something approaching decent mileage, are engineered more for comfort and convenience rather than off-road sensibilities, and like many have said, they give under-skilled drivers a false sense of security when conditions get hazardous.

I would seriously like to see most of them taken off the road. Even here in the Buffalo area, there are maybe 5-10 day a year that you would possible need one. They waste fuel and other resources to support them. Just about everything on them that aren't common-core parts costs four times as much as for a 2WD, and people simply don't have the proper skills in order to operate these things safely.

I'd like to see a system where you'd have to prove a true need for such a vehicle, along with a special endorsement on your driver's license before you'd be allowed to purchase one. Along with that, I'd like to see them governed so they can't exceed 75 miles per hour, and restrictions on useless garbage like DVD players and displays. You got kids that need constant entertainment on drives? Too bad. Deal with it like my parents did. Comic books, coloring books, road games worked just fine then.

And then there are the ones who want one so they're "safer" in an accident. Pure BS. Most SUVs are little more than a steel, plastic, and aluminum bubble now (unibody), exactly like a regular car. They come apart just as fast in collisions with the added bonus of having a higher center of gravity they tend to roll over more.

kkinnison:There are many idiots who think 4 wheel drive gives them more traction. When you get stuck in RWD or FWD, you switch to 4WD and go home to have a beer. if you get stuck in 4WD .. your stuck

Ah, this takes me back to, oh, about 1981. A 16-year old friend of mine (we were in high school) wanted to impress his girlfriend, who always wanted to have a picnic in a field of wildflowers. So one day, he went out scouting fields with his '73 Grand Prix. It being early spring and all, he got stuck.

So, he called me, as I come from a family that has always had 4x4s. My dear, sweet mom was the first to arrive with her rust bucket AMC-era sky-blue '78 Jeep Cherokee - The Squaw, she'd call it. Stuck in the mud up to the wheel wells.

The second vehicle to arrive was my brother with his Tonka truck. I think it was a '79 short bed GMC, although I can remember what they were called then. It didn't have a chance.

Another brother arrived with his full-sized truck...I think it might have been an F250 or the equivalent. The mud laughed, belched, and ate another 4x4.

So there we are, six hours later, cold, wet and pissed, 4 vehicles (3 of them 4x4s) stuck in the mud, with a total of 9 people stranded, before we all accepted the inevitable and called a damn tow truck. My SIL showed up in her mother's Bonneville and got all 9 into the car, with two in the trunk for the ride home.

The next morning, the kid was at my house at 8:00 a.m. with $240 in cash for my mom's towing expenses. It broke her heart to take the money from him, bless his heart.

/the girl dumped him a few weeks later//I married him///I dumped him 15 years later

Yeah my S10 Blazer DOES make me invincible win any conditions I've experienced in the 10 years I've owned it in WI. No lift, no lockers, no winch. There was one snowstorm that was too deep to drive in but only on unplowed sidestreets. You just have to know your turning and braking limits. If you dive in traffic at all, get winter tires. Mostly, stay as far away I would never not own a 4x4 in this climate (and still expect to get anywhere or have some fun). Absolutely lots of people are clueless, but all the people here bashing 4x4s are just as ignorant or are jealous.

I see it every year in Canada. The guy most likely to get into an accident when it slows is usually driving an SUV and thinks putting it into 4wd means they can drive the same way as a dry day in summer.

For me 4wd is for getting up and down unplowed side streets in my area (which are all very hilly).

This. I have a 4wd suv that I take out yo the trails all the time but my current tires can not handle the mud at all. Half a mile in and my tires are so caked with mud they are useless they are barely even rudders at that point. The next set are going yo be a good BFG off road tire.

BFG KM2's are very good off-road but they are shiat in the rain. I'm running Dick Cepek mud country tires and they do a lot better in the rain and IMHO are better off-road as well. Not as good as all terrains, but that's a sacrifice you have to make with mud terrain tires. I've pulled people out of ditches this winter without spinning a tire on snow and ice. That was in 4Lo, of course, but I was impressed by the grip.

Psylence:I recommend an Expedition One steel plate front bumper. 125lbs of fark YOU when someone pulls out in front. Add in a winch for more carnage.

Nice...

My CJ-5 had just a double tube rear bumper someone threw on the front. We had abandoned cars in the forest near our house, and I'd drive by and nail those doors all the time. I also taco'd a shopping cart once just to se what would happen. Not a scuff, scratch or ding on the Jeep, and the bumper had so many farking layers of black spray paint on it, I never had to touch that up, either... :-) Also been toying with the idea of making my own. My stepson is learning welding, and his father has the skills, too. If I can design it myself and have them put it together for me, I'll probably save a minimum of $500...

waterrockets: I never had any jeeps as new as a Wrangler. '42 Willy's CJ-2A, '69 CJ-5, '84 CJ-7, then a '97 4Runner.

You functionally have. A 1994 Wrangler is essentially a CJ-9.Bzzzt! WRONG!!! The '94 Wrangler was a YJ,there never was a CJ-9.The YJ replaced the CJ series in '86,which was replaced by the TJ in '96,the current Wrangler ('07 to present) is a JK.

This text is now purple:waterrockets: Well then you know that it's possible to slow more rapidly in a 4x4 than in a car that's just using brakes.

Engine braking and brake drum braking both require a functional frictional interface between tire surfaces and the roadway.

If your tires cannot provide enough torque resistance, all of that decreased engine rotation just results in a spin.

This is only applies when the vehicle is in the air. If I'm on ice, I have traction. The key that most people seem to be missing is that traction varies. When you have less of it, you need to go slower...

You know how, sometimes, San Jacinto or the San Bernardino mountains look white? Or that time your neighbor drove up to Julian and mentioned there was some sort of cold, white particulate matter on the ground?

Oh, better yet, you know how your cousin likes to brag about "doing a dawn patrol" off Bolsa Chica before "hitting the slopes at Big Bear" in the afternoon? That white powdery substance he keeps putting up his nose? That's snow.

SpectroBoy:FlashHarry: • nothing will help you on ice - not tires, not 4wd, not anything - except extreme caution

Studded snows help.

I had 4 studded snows on my old 1978 Camaro and the thing would go through packed snow and ice like a champ.

Studded snow tires are illegal in several states. The one time I was in a car with studded tires, it was amazing. A '76 Oldsmobile Cutlass Station Wagon with studded tires will out-perform newer cars with 4x4.

redlegrick:Speaking as a former used-car salesman, in the 6 years I sold cars, we probably had less than twenty customers who actually needed a 4WD/AWD. All of them either had professions that required them to go off-highway to job sites or lived in areas that weren't frequently serviced by the plows (Western New York).

All the rest went to idiots that either wanted one of those bloated f**kers to basically look good when they showed up at the bar, or because all the rappers drove 'em in their videos. A few stated they preferred the type because the roads in downtown Buffalo are totally hammered from the weather and the substandard work done on them, which I would give them credit for, but most just wanted them because "they be big!"

From the first snowfall of the season to the last, we'd get calls from those idiots claiming they're vehicles were faulty because they lost it on the Thruway, or they pasted them driving too fast on bad days. It was always the vehicle's (and by extension our) fault they rear-ended someone or they planted it in the median.

I also blame the manufacturers and their ads. They show the cars (and they are really cars, for the most part), blasting through snow, driving at high speeds on icy roads, crap like that. Very few people are qualified to actually take something like this off-road, and honestly, SUVs are really minimal for actual off-roading. They're built very light in order to get something approaching decent mileage, are engineered more for comfort and convenience rather than off-road sensibilities, and like many have said, they give under-skilled drivers a false sense of security when conditions get hazardous.

I would seriously like to see most of them taken off the road. Even here in the Buffalo area, there are maybe 5-10 day a year that you would possible need one. They waste fuel and other resources to support them. Just about everything on them that aren't common-core parts costs four times as much as for a 2WD, and people simply don't ...

Way to judge a book by it's cover.

I suppose the guy who sold me my Expedition may have thought the same thing. I have a desk job and bought a big ole 4wd suv. "Why does this guy NEED 4WD??!?!"

Of course this theoretical asshat would have no way of knowing that I go camping, hunting, and fishing off road on a regular basis. When he sees the truck it is always clean. Because when it gets dirty I splurge the whopping $6 and go through the car wash.

Flragnararch:11) the 4x4 does not have its lights on in the middle of the day while its snowing

AHHHHHHH... This drives me nuts. It's snowing like crazy, visibility's a couple hundred feet, everyone has their wipers going, and the guy in the BLACK SUV can't be bothered to turn on his lights. In fairness, it seems like every vehicle without headlights on ( not just SUVs) when they should be is some dark color (blue, black, whatever). Makes sense I guess, they didn't think about visibility when choosing a color, why would they think about it now?

Anyway, could this lack of headlights be because of the AUTO headlight feature on later models?

Drove a couple of Chevy's for the job that had this. Apparently the lights are supposed to come on if it's dark enough. Wasn't able to test this, I turned them on manually.

/my '97 ford ranger obviously does not have this feature//good, one less thing to have to bypass

I don't pull into an intersection unless I know I can get out of it safely. Sitting in the middle of an intersection doesn't give you the right-of-way; you're forcing others who have the right-of-way to remain stopped because you feel entitled to turn. I prefer not to encourage others to plow into my car.

Explodo:It looks an awful lot like a pretty mundane little hill you have there. I've seen minivans and Civics drive hills like that. Maybe I'm losing some sense of scale there, but it really doesn't look like it.

Yay living in Colorado with a Rubicon!

So much this. Everywhere in Colorado Springs is uphill both ways... literally! I'll admit east coast drivers suck, so do Dallas drivers, but out here, we get them from all over because we're surrounded by Military Bases. Add in all the young GI's go out and buy Camaro's and Mustang's as their first car (generally the gutless V6 versions) that are rear wheel drive, it makes for Hell on traffic as these southerners try to drive uphill in rear wheel drive cars in 10 inches of snow.

Basically, they end up just clogging all the main thoroughfares in town when it snows really bad.

FlashHarry:• nothing will help you on ice - not tires, not 4wd, not anything - except extreme caution• in snow and slush, snow tires are key - especially if you have RWD. the germans have known this for decades and do just fine• there is no such thing as an all-season tire - with the possible exception of the Nokian WRG2, which is awesome and well worth the price.

I drive PINS a lot. This sign should really say, "Abandon all hope, all ye who enter without 4WD."One day, many years ago, some guy hit the sand and drove the full 60 miles to the Mansfield Cut in a got-damn 4 door Lincoln Continental. He finally got stuck while realizing he couldn't swim across the cut. Took 3 big ol' 4WD trucks in tandem to pull him out.

[i865.photobucket.com image 850x662]

I lived in the desert.You learn to drive in the morning, early.Sand is cold, moist, and compact then.Once the sun hits it, it puffs up and you are screwed.

Sojianna:I don't pull into an intersection unless I know I can get out of it safely. Sitting in the middle of an intersection doesn't give you the right-of-way; you're forcing others who have the right-of-way to remain stopped because you feel entitled to turn. I prefer not to encourage others to plow into my car.

In VA, you are legally obligated to pull into the intersection while waiting to make the turn.

We had a nasty snowstorm where I live a couple of years ago. I had to put chains on my little front wheel drive Ford Focus and got on the highway to drive home. Every single car that was stuck on the side of the road was a 4WD. I just kept puttering along at a reasonable speed and made it home with no problem. These folks see the commercials with the Wrangler crashing through the snow and think that their car can do it with no problem. Stupid-ass people.